Return Is More Than Saying the Word

The opening word in Hebrew is lemor, “saying”, which normally stands in the middle of a sentence, so the verse begins as if picking up a thread. The key verb is shuv, to turn or return, and with its derivative “backsliding” it sounds more than a dozen times in this chapter. Here it comes twice: the husband may not return, yet God says return.

“High places” here are shephayim, bare hilltops scraped clear of trees. The written Hebrew uses a crude verb for being ravished, and the scribes directed readers to substitute the milder “lien with”, as they did wherever that verb appears. Sitting by the roads recalls Tamar waiting “in an open place, which is by the way” (Genesis 38:14); the Arabian is a desert raider lying in wait for caravans.

The “latter rain”, malqosh, falls in March and April and fills out the grain before harvest; its failure meant a thin crop. Deuteronomy 11:17 had warned that idolatry would “shut up the heaven, that there be no rain”. A “whore’s forehead” is a brazen face that cannot blush, the “impudent” forehead of Ezekiel 3:7.

“The guide of my youth” is the phrase Proverbs 2:17 uses of the adulteress, “which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God”. The word alluf means a close companion or intimate friend, more a husband’s title than a father’s, so Judah mixes two family terms in a single breath.

The people’s question borrows the creed of Psalm 103:9, “neither will he keep his anger for ever”, and uses it as a reason to change nothing. In verse 12 God says the same words himself, “I will not keep anger for ever”, but attached to a call to return. “As thou couldest” means to the limit of her ability.

“Backsliding Israel” is used almost as a name, “Turning-away Israel”, and verse 7 gives Judah her matching title, “Treacherous”. Ezekiel 23 builds a whole chapter on the same two sisters under the names Aholah and Aholibah. The northern kingdom had fallen a century before Josiah, so its history is being read back as a warning.

God’s invitation to the north is on record: “O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God” (Hosea 14:1), preached in the northern kingdom before its fall. The same verb covers the invitation and the refusal, “Turn” and “returned not”, so the whole failure is told in one word said twice.

“Bill of divorce” is sefer keritut, literally a document of cutting off, the written release Deuteronomy 24:1 required a husband to hand his wife. Isaiah 50:1 asks, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement?”, implying there was none for Judah; here the northern kingdom has one. “Feared not” completes the charge: seeing did not frighten her.

“Lightness” translates a word that can mean frivolity or, spelled the same way, a sound or rumour; the King James takes it as frivolity, betrayal treated as a trifle. The partners are the “stones” and “stocks” of 2:27, the standing pillars and wooden poles once called mother and father, now named as lovers.

“Feignedly” is besheqer, “in falsehood”; sheqer, the lie, is one of Jeremiah’s signature words, recurring in the “lying words” of 7:4 and the false pen of 8:8. “With her whole heart” echoes the Law’s demand in Deuteronomy 6:5, and Josiah was remembered as the king who turned “with all his heart” (2 Kings 23:25).

The comparative recalls Judah the patriarch, who said of Tamar, “She hath been more righteous than I” (Genesis 38:26). Now the kingdom that bears his name hears the same verdict against itself. Ezekiel 16:51–52 makes the same move, saying Jerusalem has made even Samaria look righteous.

The northern exiles had been settled “in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (2 Kings 17:6). “Cause mine anger to fall” is literally “cause my face to fall”, a scowl, as Cain’s face fell (Genesis 4:5). “Merciful” is chasid, a word used of God elsewhere only in Psalm 145:17.

“Scattered thy ways” pictures running off in every direction, the criss-crossing she-camel of 2:23 once more. “Ye have not obeyed my voice” is literally “you have not listened to my voice”, a refrain drawn from Deuteronomy 28:15 and repeated many times in this book; the grammar slips from “thou” to “ye” as it is said.

“I am married unto you” is baalti, “I am your baal”, your husband or master, the very title Israel had been giving to Baal. God reclaims it. “Family” here is mishpachah, a clan, often larger than a single town, which makes the numbers small indeed: a remnant gathered one and two at a time.

“According to mine heart” is the language Samuel used when he told Saul that God had sought “a man after his own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), meaning David. Kings were called shepherds throughout the ancient Near East; the promise is of rulers chosen as David was, and 23:4 repeats it.

The last historical mention of the ark is Josiah telling the Levites to “put the holy ark in the house” (2 Chronicles 35:3); after that it vanishes from the record. A later legend in 2 Maccabees 2:4–8 claims that Jeremiah himself hid it in a cave on Mount Nebo. “Multiplied and increased” is the blessing of Genesis 1:28.

The ark with its cherubim had been God’s throne, where he was praised as the one who “dwellest between the cherubims” (2 Kings 19:15); the whole city now takes its place. “Imagination” is sheriruth, stubbornness, the word of Deuteronomy 29:19, and Jeremiah uses it more than any other book, eight times.

The verse assumes that Judah too will be in “the land of the north”, an exile that had not yet happened when it was spoken. Reunion of the two houses, divided since Rehoboam, becomes a standing hope; Ezekiel acts it out by joining two sticks into one in his hand (Ezekiel 37:15–22).

Israel is addressed as a daughter, and daughters did not normally inherit; the daughters of Zelophehad needed a special ruling (Numbers 27:1–8). God asks how to give her a son’s share. “Goodly heritage of the hosts of nations” means the loveliest inheritance of all the nations. Psalm 106:24 says the wilderness generation “despised the pleasant land”.

“Treacherously” is bagad, to deal faithlessly, the root of Judah’s title “treacherous” in verses 7 to 11; Malachi 2:14–16 uses it again and again of men breaking faith with “the wife of thy youth”. “Husband” here is rea, companion or friend, the partner she walked away from.

“Supplications” are pleas for favour, from the root chen, grace. “Perverted” is avah, to bend or twist, so the way is not abandoned but warped. “Forgotten the LORD their God” picks up 2:32, where the bride forgot “days without number”; the weeping is the first sign that the forgetting is breaking.

The Hebrew is a knot of one root: shuvu banim shovavim, erpa meshuvotekhem, “turn, turning children, I will heal your turnings”. The promise quotes Hosea 14:4, “I will heal their backsliding”. For the first time in the chapter someone answers: “Behold, we come unto thee.”

Literally the line runs “surely a lie are the hills, the tumult of the mountains”; “multitude” is hamon, the noise of crowds at hilltop festivals. Psalm 121:1–2 asks the same question of the hills and gives the same answer: “My help cometh from the LORD.” The word “salvation” closes the verse, set where it belongs.

“Shame” is bosheth, a word scribes substituted for the name Baal, as Saul’s son Eshbaal became Ish-bosheth; 11:13 calls Baal’s altars “altars to that shameful thing”. So the verse can be heard as “Baal hath devoured”. The sons and daughters were literally consumed, burned at Topheth (7:31).

“We lie down” is shakav, the verb of verse 2, where the scribes’ reading had the land asked where she had not “lien with” her lovers; the same verb now describes lying down in shame. “Confusion covereth us” pictures disgrace as a blanket, as Psalm 109:29 has enemies “cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle”.